(Only the epilogue left!)
I woke in my own bed. Aching all over, I licked my lips and tasted blood. I tried to sit, but my entire body protested so I gave up.
“You feeling okay?”
I tried to look around without moving my head. Carl sat beside my bed, big black bags under his eyes. His stubble was turning into a proper tawny beard. I tried to speak, but no sound came out. I rolled my eyes instead. It was a stupid question, anyway.
“Hold on. I’ll get help.”
Like I was going anywhere. My eyes closed again, but before I could lose myself completely, voices filtered through the film of pain around me. A cool breeze blew on my neck, clearing my head. Opening my eyes, I saw Eddie holding a blood bag over me. I tried to mouth the word no, but he ignored me. I was terrified of being overwhelmed by the thirst. I didn’t want to feed the built-in addiction I was carrying around with me.
“Take this quietly, Ava. You’ll heal faster this way. All of the damage is on the inside.”
I opened my mouth obediently as he carried on speaking, his tone hypnotic.
“We’ve been forcing it down you for days now. You’ve been unconscious for that long. We couldn’t take you to the hospital because your fangs wouldn’t retract. Besides, a human doctor can’t fix a supernatural being.”
Days. How many days? Not that it mattered. I was alive. I hadn’t expected to get out of Maximus’s place alive.
“If you took some fresh blood, from the source, you would heal up much more quickly,” he said. “They won’t let it happen until you agree, though. What do you think?”
I shook my head as hard as I dared, glaring at him. The bagged blood didn’t taste quite right, but it was better than knowing someone in my life cut themselves open to feed me.
I slept after I drank, but the pain wracking my body was less excruciating than before.
When I next awoke, it was night. My grandmother sat by my bedside, wide awake and alert. She looked better than the last time I’d seen her, but she was pale, and her head was still noticeably wounded with a deep cut. The bruise around her eye had turned yellow and somehow that looked worse to me.
“Come ‘ere,” I mumbled. She leaned over me like I was about to say my last words. I raised my hand to my lips as slowly as possible then licked. She cocked her head, looking first confused and then disturbed as I pressed my wet fingers to her wound. I watched it heal rapidly. She felt the area with cautious touches, her eyes widening as she realised what I’d done.
“Wow.”
I nodded carefully, surprised to find my body wasn’t as stiff as before.
“You were very brave, Ava. I was so proud. I’m sorry I let myself be taken. I mean, I opened the door to a bunch of vampires without even realising it.”
“Doesn’t matter. I was screwed either way. They would have gotten to me somehow. Better to go to them than wait in fear for the rest of my life.”
I cleared my throat. It felt better. I sat up, careful not to move too fast. I was in my own bedroom, but everything looked different. I couldn’t put my finger on why.
“So what happened when you left Maximus’s place?”
She looked away and frowned. “The vampires drove me to Peter’s house, but they wouldn’t let me call you. Peter was frantic. Eddie was already there. They were all trying to figure out what had happened. Eddie decided we could only beat Maximus’s coven by using someone bigger and better.” She pulled her arms around herself, as if guarding herself from her memories.
